Today the Grading and Declaration Review Committee of the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) will meet to consider provisional protection of the River Club site under Section 29(1) of the National Heritage Resources Act as a heritage resource which it considers to be threatened.
This protection dates back to a submission made in February 2020 by the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoin Indigenous Traditional Council (GKKITC), the Observatory Civic Association (OCA) and the Two Rivers Urban Park Association (TRUPA) to Heritage Western Cape (HWC) for grading of the Two Rivers Urban Park as a Provincial Heritage Site. The application was supported by about 60 other organisations, councils, trusts and NGOs and was preceded by a public press conference in December 2019 where leaders from the Kai Korana, Cochoqua, Nama and other groups joined the applicants to call for provincial heritage status.
At the time, the developers, quoted in the press, responded by scoffing at the nomination, claiming that only Heritage Western Cape (HWC), as the appropriate provincial agency, could determine the grading and assessment of provincial heritage resources. HWC did not do anything about the nomination because of COVID until the following year. But in July 2021, after considering the full nomination, HWC did exactly what LLPT said they are competent to do. Having considered the heritage significance, HWC referred the nomination to SAHRA as likely being of national heritage. In their referral, they indicated that “various reports have since convinced Heritage Specialists IACom and HWC Council that TRUP needs to be Protected as either Provincial Heritage Grade or higher. We are therefore applying for urgent grading of the TRUP, as phase 1.”
The urgency was confirmed by a request from the GKKITC in August 2021 for provision protection of the River Club site under Section 29(1) of the National Heritage Resources Act. However, relatively little happened until late 2022, during which time the construction has continued apace.
It was only in October 2022 that SAHRA appointed consultants to hold meetings with stakeholders to formulate a report to SAHRA to consider provisional protection. The consultants convened a meeting in November 2022 at which about 80 Khoi and San leaders and community activists gave their inputs. Following those meetings, and stakeholder inputs, the consultants drew up a report which will be considered today by the SAHRA Grading and Declarations Review Committee.
It has taken more than 18 months for SAHRA to come to the point where provisional protection of the River Club is to be decided upon. During that time, we have campaigned consistently for proper recognition of the significance of the site, as can be seen in image above from a Freedom Day event in 2021 when hundreds of supporters converged on the TRUP to restore a vandalised plaque commemorating the Khoi presence and historical attachment to the site.
The developers have already dismissed the legitimacy of the SAHRA process in the press, referring to it as “superfluous” because the heritage significance of the area “has been well documented” and labelling the SAHRA’s process as “an unnecessary, wasteful and legally indefensible duplication of public resources, and of the public purse, in a process that will carry no weight whatsoever.”
It is clear that the developers have long tried to avoid any fair and impartial assessment by the competent Provincial and now National heritage authorities of the significance of the site – all so that their development application was not held up.
We hope that SAHRA will remain true to it legal mandate and decide without fear or favour on this matter today.
A SAHRA decision will be very relevant to the review process in the High Court, despite the developer's bluster to the contrary.
As always, please help us fund these legal costs by contributing at our fundraising site.
Visit our website and follow the Liesbeek Action Campaign on twitter: @LiesbeekAction.
Make the Liesbeek Matter!